Indian Railway Production Units

The Indian Railway is the most widely used transport system in India. The production of the parts and units of rails forms an important and integral part of the proper functioning of the railway system in India. Rolling stock and heavy engineering components forms the main units that are manufactured in huge numbers. Indian Railway Production Units are under the direct management of the Railway Ministry. The productions of Indian Railway are done in parts and are categorized into:

• Locomotives
• Rolling Stock
• Axles and wheels
• Workshops

The main Production Units of the Indian Railways in Locomotives sections are:

• Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, Chittaranjan: This locomotive factory is the oldest in India with its inauguration held on January 26th, 1950. CLW, as it is often referred to, deals with the production of steam locomotives, diesel locomotives, electric locomotives and AC electric locomotives.
• Diesel-Loco Modernisation Works, Patiala: This factory was primarily referred to as the Diesel Component Works ands was set in the year 1981. This factory was set to manufacture electric and diesel locomotives spare parts. Traction motors, rebuilding engine blocks, traction generators and motors and locomotive power packs form the basic production of this factory.
• Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi: This factory was set in the year 1961 and produced its first locomotives in the year 1964. This factory produces locomotives in-house like engines, fabricated bogies, superstructures and underframes. DLW specializes in producing diesel locomotives and mostly diesel electrics. Of late, this factory has also started producing equipments for industries other than railways.

Rolling Stock for the Indian Railways are produced at:

• Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala: This factory was set in the year 1987 and first production of this factory came out in the year 1988. Since 1991, this factory has been producing air-conditioned coaches with AC units mounted on the roof and air braked coaches. The factory specializes in the design and development of light weight high speed coaches.
• Integral Coach Factory, Chennai: This factory was set in the year 1955 to build coaches. The production rate of this factory has been par excellence and today it manufactures around 170 types of coaches. EMU, DMU, monitoring vehicles and diesel railcars are also produced by this factory.

Other production units for rolling stocks for Indian Railways are Jessop & Co., Burn & Co., Braithwaite &Co., Bharat Wagon and Engineering Co. and Titagarh Wagons Ltd.

For Axles and wheels, the Indian Railway production units are situated at,

• Rail Wheel Factory, Bangalore: Formerly referred to as the Wheel and Axle Plant, was set in the year 1984. This factory was set up to compliment the production of wheels and axles which was being done by Durgapur Steel Plant. The annual production of this factory is around 80,000 wheels and 50,000 axles.

Workshops are situated at Jamalpur, Alambagh, Charbagh, Ajmer, Golden Rock Workshops at Nagapattinam, Kharagpur, Motibagh in Nagpur, Tindharia, Coonoor steam shed and Liluah.